by Yoram Schweitzer and Benedetta Berti,
The past few weeks have not been easy for Hizbollah. On February 27, 2013 Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah appeared on the organization's cable television station, al-Manar, to refute claims regarding his presumed serious illness and subsequent hospitalization for urgent treatment in Iran.
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by Natalia Simanovsky
Tel Aviv – To the vast majority of people living in Israel, the 22 January election has a foregone conclusion: current Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will be re-elected to lead the 19th Knesset. Instead, the questions on many people’s minds are how his re-election will affect the stalled peace process with the Palestinians and what kind of measures will be necessary to restart negotiations.
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by Shimon Stein,
In atypical fashion, four EU member nations that are also members of the UN Security Council – Great Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal – joined forces, and on December 19, 2012 issued a statement criticizing the Israeli government decision to accelerate settlement construction in "the occupied territories."
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by Oded Eran and Robbie Sabel
Two Palestinian documents recently made public deserve attention: the Palestinian request for non-member state status at the United Nations General Assembly,[1] and the speech made by President Abu Mazen on November 11, 2012 at the ceremony marking the death of Yassir Arafat eight years ago.[2]
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By Yoram Evron
On October 31, 2012, China deviated from its traditional posture of shunning involvement in Middle East politics, and announced a four-step program to resolve the crisis in Syria. The initiative, however, does not include concrete actions and seems powerless to change the situation. If so, is the step meaningless, or does it have some significance not apparent at first glance?
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Most articles in the Iranian media on the nuclear issue reiterate Iran's "inalienable right" to enrich uranium according to the NPT. Iran contends that as a member of the NPT, it is treated unfairly by the international community when demands are made that it suspend enrichment.
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Tripoli/Brussels - The violent death of the U.S. ambassador and three of his colleagues is a stark reminder of the challenges Libya still faces and should serve as a wake-up call for the authorities to urgently fill the security vacuum.
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by Zaki Shalom,
Rebel activity against Bashar Assad’s regime, which began in March 2011, was initially limited to certain areas, while Syria’s large cities remained more or less undisturbed. During the first months, there was noted hesitancy on Washington's part regarding the best course of action for the United States in this crisis.
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by Natalia Simanovsky
Tel Aviv, Israel - In late July, Ziad al-Bandak, an advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, made an official visit to the Auschwitz Holocaust memorial to pay respect to the million-and-a-half victims of the camp, most of whom were Jewish. Yet the majority of media outlets in Israel and abroad only reported on the event a few days later, following condemnation of al-Bandak’s visit from Hamas and the Union of Palestinian Communities and Associations in Europe.
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by Yoel Guzansky
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Iranian President Ahmadinejad met in Mecca last week at an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which decided to suspend Syria’s membership in the organization. This decision is mainly symbolic, but Ahmadinejad's participation at the OIC meeting on Saudi soil at this time was as surprising as was the invitation itself.
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